Wedding Preps

Exhaustion and slight depression draped over me shortly after the wedding, attended by persistent cluster headaches. Probably a combination of all the long hours of preparations leading up to the day, emotions, and work.  I feel as though I’ve been almost a zoombie except for pushing myself to do the necessary tasks. Forget bloggins; By evening words skitter and flit through the brain, fingers key in wrong letters, cohesion is gone. Ironically, after two weeks of warm/hot weather, clouds moved back in this afternoon and a light, soft rain in pattering against the roof. It’s time to try to blog about the wedding.

Wednesday and Thursday (May 20, 21) I went to the home of Aurora’s future mother-in-law, Ruth, to begin making the salads. Wednesday it was just the two of us – a great chance to get to know Ruth better. I loved working with Ruth in her bright airy kitchen with ample space.

Periodically I’d spy a red tractor outside the kitchen window, slowly moving back and forth, raking up and down the long stretch of grass hay field. It was Grassman.

Raking Hay

Thursday Aurora and her two friends who flew out from Minnesota, Melis and Teresa joined me at Ruth’s for more food making and preparations. This time a cousin of Ruth’s and one of her sisters joined in the food making. Still, 40 pounds of potatoes and dozens of hard boiled eggs take a long time to peel and chop for potato salad. The next day my poor finger nails started snagging and peeling from being wet for so many hours. It’s a good thing that Aurora and friends took on the tasks that weren’t food related – she’d have ruined her beautiful French nails, for sure.

Teresa, Melis, Aurora and Ruth

At the vineyard Friday morning to set up tables and chairs, put together the last of the salads, cut and arrange fruits and veggies. To our immense dismay the refrigerator had stopped working. A part was ordered but it wouldn’t be coming until Monday. No fridge! Ruth took the potato salads back to their extra fridge at the farm, I took the coleslaw dressing back home, (hadn’t mixed it in the salad yet), the pasta salads I’d made on Wednesday would be fine. A friend brought up a huge styrofoam cooler full of ice that was placed on the top rack of the fridge with more packs of ice strategically placed near the wedding cakes with their layers of whipped cream frosting, and between the trays of fruits and veggies. After hauling all that food up there we did not relish the idea of hauling it all home and back again.

Teresa, Melis and other friends helped decorate the gazebo and reception haul. I’d left the house at 9 that morning expecting to be finished and back home by 2. Ha! At 2:45 I gave my apologies for baling out on the crew and frantically drove the 23 miles down the winding hills, through town – getting momentarily caught in the after-school traffic in Silverton (recently voted one of the top ten coolest small towns of the US in the magazine, Budget Traveler), to pick up Ed and frantically change into clothes then immediately turn around and head back to the vineyard for the 4pm rehearsal. Whew! Made it.

Meanwhile, Grassman continued raking the long fields of grass hay. The night of rain on Tuesday had come as the freshly cut hay was still drying. No matter that there’s a wedding coming, the hay must be turned and dried. He daily continued the journey back and forth across the fields and late into the night .  Taking a break only long enough to make it to the reheasal and the dinner afterwards at a nearby golf course.

Wedding details in the next post.

Today Wesley turned one year old. His birthday was celebrated at the annual Hazel bonfire Saturday evening.